The pain of walking away from the pain

"It is so hard to leave—until you leave. And then it is the easiest goddamned thing in the world.” John Green

And just when I thought I overcame my limits, new challenges arise. It is incredible how attached we become to our stuff, our life as it was and how uncomfortable a simple change, like quitting an apartment, becomes. So this is a post to let you know that, yes, when it comes to change, no matter how big or how small…. IT IS OK to be afraid and feel uncomfortable.

And just when I thought I overcame my limits, new challenges arise. It is incredible how attached we become to our stuff, our life as it was and how uncomfortable a simple change, like quitting an apartment, becomes. So this is a post to let you know that, yes, when it comes to change, no matter how big or how small…. IT IS OK to be afraid and feel uncomfortable.

I did MUCH bigger changes in my life, but as time goes by, I guess it is harder and harder to press the switch. I am writing this post from an almost empty apartment, as I am getting ready to move out.

The sound of the music echoes louder than before, the space looks bigger and, in this empty space, the memories and emotions start dancing in front of my eyes. Some are so beautiful, others are painful and heart breaking. And despite that, I still have the feeling I don’t want to let go.

Then it hits me: involuntarily, sometimes, often, we cling to the past and we let it define us, never making space for new things and circumstances to come into our life.

Aha-moment!

The story behind the pain

I moved in this apartment about 5 years ago, hoping that this amazing space will fix the broken relationship I was in.

We created here beautiful memories and terrible fights.

In the morning he would make coffee and that smell would wake me up in a pure state of happiness. We would laugh our brains out after a shitty day at work, drinking a glass of wine while watching the sunset on our terrace. We would plan holidays and funky weekends. But now, looking back, I realise one thing: we never ever spoke about a future together.

And then we had terrible fights; we would drive each other so crazy that we couldn’t stand being in the same space. This emotional war went on and on and on! That until one day, that day when he dropped the keys and left.

“The most painful thing is losing yourself in the process of loving someone too much, and forgetting that you are special too.” Hemingway

And then the pain!!! That crazy pain that I thought is going to kill me, because every second I felt it, became more and more vivid. For weeks, even for months, I suffered like a dog and every corner of this space would remind me of him; I had nowhere to go. I still remember the way I simply crawled on the floor and leaned on the entrance door for hours after he left. I think I can still literally smell the pain of that moment, because it go stuck in the walls and in the air of the rooms.

Re-living this pain while writing these lines, I just realised it never went away for good. A small part of me still relived it every single day I was living here.

After weeks, he kind of wanted to come back, but I was already too broken, that pain digging so deep, I could never trust people again. Or so I thought. I stayed alone and numb for months. Those were the days when something broke forever in me, just to shape and make space for a different person.

And one day, I started getting better. I still felt alone and abandoned, but I could finally get out of bed and glimpses of awareness started emerging from deep inside me. In the sunny days, I would go out to read on the terrace and sometimes even listen to music. And slowly but surely, I kind of went back to living….

This space witnessed my emotional death and then my resurrection. I had so much fun here and at times I felt so lonely. So much fun that I would jump to the ceiling. So much loneliness, that I would wake up at times in tears.

Pain defines us. If we allow it to…

Funny enough, it is really hard to let go of the pain. Because I let that define me for such a long time. What pain do you have in the past that is still defining you?

Sometimes life makes you get rid of things that don’t serve you anymore. People, places, situations. It has happened countless times for me in the past five years. But change is always frightening, because with every change we redefine ourselves within a new identity and leave behind a piece of our past.

As for myself?! It has been incredible painful to leave behind that powerless woman who thought she is the victim of others’ behaviour. It has been incredible difficult to understand and believe I got all the power it takes to overcome whatever comes my way. An incredible struggle to finally accept I will never be who I was before that breaking moment.

I am making peace everyday with who I am and reach for who I want to become. So… can I do that while carrying the past pain and looking always backwards? I guess not, so life took out from my life things, places, people that would remind me on a daily basis of that.

It has been hard in the moment, but looking back it has been the best thing that could happen for my growth.

So ask yourself: what do you still hang on to? And why? Is it serving you? Because if it makes you feel pain, it clearly doesn’t!

Waving goodbye to the old pieces

This apartment and the story with the pain of letting go is actually an allegory; cause we all hang on to something or someone for way too long. This place was the last piece in my life reminding me of who I was.

I did not only leave the apartment, but also everything that was inside. I took with me few cloths and some design pieces. Everything else was left behind.

As I handed out the keys and stepped out from it, it hit me a feeling of lack of identity. Not because of the apartment, but because of who I was in that place. Saying good-bye to THAT final piece had been excruciatingly difficult, but after that I felt a weird emotional freedom.

Make space for magic

I was reading in a book (sorry, don’t remember the name) that in order to refurbish an apartment, first you need to get rid of the old furniture and that’s exactly what happens when we decide to make a change.

Old couch out, new couch in, old chairs out, new chairs in…. and so on.

But if you take out the whole furniture at the same time?! Is that wise? Would you be able to live in an empty space? So that’s why, piece by piece by piece, we remove, in time, the “old” so we make space to the “new”.

Redesigning my inner world

And to be honest, that is what happens to me. Piece by piece, I started refurbishing my inner world about three years ago.

The process made me who I am today. A person who believes more in people, dreams and opportunities. A person that stopped judging others and started looking more in the mirror. A person that is willing to try, fail, get up, repeat. A person that is learning how to live in the moment and be grateful for what she’s got. And, finally, a person that can go every day to sleep and say “Today I did the best to my current abilities and I am proud of who I am becoming…”

PS: as for me not writing for almost 6 months… that’s another story! That I shall share in a future post. Hopefully sometimes soon. Much love and wanderlust!